Roskilde Folkedanserlaug

Danish folk dancer association (Roskilde Folk Dancer Guild) formed in autumn 1975. From 1991 profiled as “Roskilde Folkedanserlaug - Lirum Larum” on official logos. Roskilde Folkedanserlaug is a part of the Lirum Larum folk music community in Roskilde, organizes balls with local Lirum Larum groups and with popular folk groups from outside, and together with Roskilde Spillemandslaug they organized the annual Roskilde Spillemandsstævne.

The beginning:
After the summer holidays in 1975, Roskilde Folkemusikforening (formerly: Roskilde Folkemusikklub) set up a folk dance class with Helle Valentin as teacher and Poul Christiansen as ‘spillemand’ (fiddler) together with a group of folk musicians. It took place in the basement hall at Allehelgens Skole, and the organizers were surprised that so many turned up to learn the old dances. A few months later, this folk dance class formed a new association, Roskilde Folkedanserlaug, which within a year had over 200 members. Later, there were folk dance classes every Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, and dancing was done exclusively to live music. In 1978 the 'folkedanserlauget' had approximately 350 members and the following year the four folk dance classes were included under the new "Lirum Larum Aftenskole".

Every year representatives were elected from all dance classes to the board of the 'folkedanserlauget', and in the following years the 'folkedanserlauget' helped organize activities such as Whitsun ball, berry picking, bird tours, town parties, bike rides, Easter courses and summer camps. For many members, the dance classes were a gateway to playing folk music themselves, and many continued into the ‘Spillemandslauget' and instrument classes at the ‘’Aftenskolen’.